Sex, brains, robots and Buddhism: looking for free will

The panel members were Chris Frith, professor of cognitive neurology at London's Institute of Neurology; Shere Hite, author of the Hite Reports and professor of gender and society at Nihon University in Japan; Owen Holland, senior lecturer in computer science at the University of Essex; and Geshe Tashi Tsering, a Tibetan Buddhist monk and head of the Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London. Keeping the proceedings focused was Simon Blackburn, professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge and author of Think

When you spontaneously lift your finger, you are aware, first, of the urge to lift it and then, shortly afterwards, of lifting it. But the brain activity that goes with this simple action (as the famous work by Benjamin Libet shows), produces a time line for the physical event that is different from that of the mental event. On average, there is a change in brain activity almost a ...

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